Now available: Internet Explorer 9 RC

The Internet Explorer 9 Release candidate has just been released and includes new features like Tracking Protection a tweaked UI that provides better Tab Management and the faster Chakra JavaScript engine that will (along with GPU integration etc.) make the IE9 RC the all round fastest browser out there. What’s in it for the IT Pro though?

Well RC means it’s time to step up your evaluation programme for IE9. Get the RC to key people to help test compatibility for your internal and mission critical web based applications but don’t deploy it to everyone in your organisation. As you know it’s not a great idea to run your business on software that’s not fully supported and still under development. It is time to start planning that rollout though and getting to know the software inside and out. Let me tell you, it’s going to be hard though….it’s really fast. Hotmail loads fully for me in less than a second! Amazon is about the same, BBC news takes a couple of seconds and all load perfectly for me in full IE9 standards mode – despite some resent and quite out of date FUD.

Oh yeah, it’s not my internet access either, I’m in a hotel room and we all know what that’s like!

So why would you want to be planning for IE9 as an IT Pro:

It’s fast, so it’s easy for your users to use – fast in every way imaginable

It’s got a simple UI that makes things easy – being able to snap tabs to each side of the screen for comparison is brilliant, try it, again your users will love it.

It’s got better privacy features than any other browser – being able to stop ads from some providers, stop some people tracking your access and critically maintaining your corporate security.

It’s got a built in update mechanism with Windows Update – that means it’s the easiest browser for you to keep up to date, and you can use WSUS to reduce bandwidth load on your Internet connection (not to mention that you can make a browser update a requirement for allowing PCs to use your network with NAP)

It’s easy to manage once you’ve deployed it – there are 1500+ settings that you can use to control every aspect of the browser experience, so you can ensure everyone gets the same experience in your company. Most other browsers have less than 100 settings and some provide the bare minimum controls for privacy.

Finally it’s much easier for your developers to do cool things with IE9…and they love it…